I’m always amazed by the sheer volume of raw food it takes to make sauce of any kind.  Our Yellow Transparent apples finally started to ripen.  I didn’t get them thinned (like I ever do) so they are small to medium, and plentiful.  Usually I like to make chunky applesauce, but I don’t like to peel small apples, so I cooked them in our 20qt stock pot, and ran them through the food mill.  So 30# of apples, will maybe give me 6 -7 quarts of sauce after I cook them down. 

This is the only waste - approximately 5 cups of glop.  Pig glop!  They love it!

I always cook down my apple, pear, and tomato sauce in my crock pots.  I have this newer 5.5 quart, and a smaller old one, maybe 3 quarts.  This way I can leave the house, and the sauce will never scorch.  This is an excellent way to make butters, because you can go as thick as you want.  I leave the lid on while it is initially heating up, and I stir it frequently to distribute the heat.  After it is thoroughly heated through, I take off the lid.  It will evaporate quicker and you will be canning sooner.  I also use these to bring the sauce to temperature for canning.  Between the two I can usually get a canner load.  I get claustrophobic in the house thinking of everything I could be doing outside - so stirring a pot of bubbling sauce is a sure guarantee that it will all be burnt and going to the pigs.  So the crock pot(s) really give me a much more predictable outcome.  With the lids off, your sauces will darken, but it is just oxidation.  If you’re looking for the pale applesauce similar to what is available in the store, don’t use this method.

 
With the sauce bubbling away, it leaves me time to start my annual worrying about Della.  I have been thinking she is losing weight, and sure enough I got a newsletter today that confirmed my suspicions.  I would like to see more back fat on her just before she calves.  But, this is my doing with the AI mess ups in the last two years. :(  My late summer pasture isn’t the highest quality, because it is new growth.   The newsletter is COW TALES, put out by Crystal Creek, whose livestock supplies I use.  There is a great article about Dairy Cow Body Condition Scores.  Check out that newsletter if you can, they usually are really production oriented for professional dairy people, but I can always find some information I can use.
So now I’m out in the field with Della, poking and measuring and fussing about.  Secretly, I think she loves all the attention.

This is my Homeopathic Farm Kit.  It contains the most common remedies needed for lactating and non-lactating food animals.  We use it too. 

I started Della on her Caulophyllum 30C today.  She will receive this everyday until she freshens, and several times a day for a few days afterwards.  This will help prepare her uterus for birth. 
So I’m crossing my fingers and hoping she will have an uneventful and successful birth!  (And maybe a heifer) 

Finally, the tomatoes are getting some color.  Still not enough to preserve yet, but hopefully soon… .  At least enough to eat all we want.

My daughter is now old enough to do some preserving on her own, and she gets real interested if it’s something she actually grew.  Sometimes I pay attention, sometimes I don’t.  The other day in the midst of the “hay salvaging”, I went to get some fruit out of the freezer for a treat, and I had noticed she had put some broccoli in bags and put it in a freezer where she could find room, and promptly forgot about it.  I realized that most of the time it never works out that we would have an open shelf in one of the freezers that we keep meat in.  And, the other thing I hadn’t even considered was that I assumed she knew not to put vegetables or fruit underneath meat.  My fault. 

Then I realized maybe some of the people reading this blog are just getting their first freezer and in a flurry of preserving activity stuffing food in, anywhere they can.  We have upright freezers, and chest freezers.  It’s easy to keep shelves of different types of food separate in an upright freezer, but in a chest freezer, it isn’t so easy.

The easiest way to keep yourself and your food safe in case of a power outage, is to load your freezer the same way you are supposed to store meats and vegetables in your refrigerator.  Meat products on bottom, and vegetables on top.

To me poultry is the worst offender.  Raw poultry blood and fluids from eggs are hard to wash from dishes, I have to soak and wash the pans sometimes twice to get the smell out of the dishes that I have thawed out a chicken in.  Probably something to do with being a bird.  So with that in mind I try to load my freezer accordingly.  Asking myself, would I eat this raw or cooked.  Anything I would cook before eating goes on the bottom shelf.  For instance, if I was freezing chicken, beef and pork, I would put chicken on the bottom, then pork, and then the beef on top.  Why?  Because, I would eat beef raw, and I would never eat pork or chicken raw, or even half cooked.  So if the beef blood got on the pork or chicken, it wouldn’t matter because I would be cooking those types of meats.  But if chicken or pork blood leaked onto my beef packages, I would be upset.  No more raw beef for me.  Oh yeah - didn’t I tell you we eat steak tartare everyday.  ;)  And, since all frozen blood looks the same, if you see blood on a package you won’t be able to discern what type of blood it actually is, unless you fill your freezer accordingly and make sure vegetables and fruit never are stored underneath meats, and meats you may be eating rare, will be on the top o’ the meat heap.

Happy freezing!

Remember that hay that was getting wet?  All baled and acting like 400+ sponges.

We have spent the last 2 1/2 days of DH’s vacation, cutting all the bales and spreading them by hand back into windrows.  How’s that for backwards thinking?  We have to be able to pick it up out of the field.  Since we are only partially mechanized, not using bale wagons to pick up the hay etc.  We are stuck having to have it dry enough for our loader to pick up.  At this point, we will TRY to get it dry enough to bale AGAIN, and salvage it for carbon, using it as bedding.  Some bales were fairly dry inside, others were starting to heat.  Believe me, if there was a easier more mechanized way to do this, we would be doing it.  We can’t leave the hay in the field in the bale form and if we can’t get it dry enough to bale and pick up, we will probably just hog mow the windrows to chew them up and it will become fertilizer. :(  We are tired and sore!

That’s our neighbor’s toy hauler, not ours.
This is my favorite field,  I want to be buried here, just to the right of this photo, on the ridge above Trapper Creek.

Today we took the camera with us to document this mess.  Hoping to remind ourselves not to repeat some of the mistakes we made.  We wasted time, fuel, and twine, not to mention the hay.

The dogs had a great time hunting for voles, and playing.

And more playing…

And, coming over to visit us, if we were resting in the shade.  Just wanting to plant kisses.

Dirty kisses.

Let me kiss you Mom, please?

As I’m posting this tonight - it’s raining, and a cool week ahead. 
 

Honeycomb Butterfly Bush.

The swallow’s favorite vantage point.  Every morning they land here on the shop roof, to warm up and plan their day.  The recent rains have caused a flush of insects, so they have been busy.  We counted 120+ of barn swallows and violet-green swallows.  It’s not unusual to see 50 or so swooping around the cows at paddock shift time.  When the cows move to the fresh grass, they stir up the insects, so the swallows watch us too.

 Hopefully, they will be in good shape for their trip South.  When they leave, it’s hard to get used to the silence.  We patiently await their return all winter.

We provide nesting areas by building our new buildings with wide eaves, in the style of our older buildings.  The one swallow house we do have, is rarely used.  This structure is built with recycled timbers, siding from our own timber, and because we aren’t getting any younger, a new metal roof.

Young Chestnut burrs.

This has embroidery written all over it!

SunSugar cherry tomatoes.  These are so sweet you can imagine that you are eating table grapes.
And, the best part, they are crack resistant, so when you reach in for that golden sweetness, you don’t stick your finger in a moldy, wet mess that is so common with cherry tomatoes. 

Our tomatoes are just starting to ripen, so we have enough to eat as much as we want, but not enough to process just yet.  I’m predicting when Della freshens, I will be up to my elbows in salsa and tomato sauce. 

We wait all summer to eat like this:  A spin on the Italian salad using cilantro pesto and Monterey Jack instead of basil and mozzarella.

Salsa Tomatoes
2 pounds tomatoes, sliced thick
1/2 pound Monterey Jack cheese sliced (or any kind of cheese)
1/2 cup sweet onion, diced

Cilantro Pesto
3 T olive oil
1/2 c cilantro leaves
2 T jalapeno or anaheim chiles, fresh is best.
1 T cider vinegar or strong Kombucha
1/2 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
Blend all ingredients until smooth.

Arrange tomatoes and cheese on platter, drizzle pesto on top, and sprinkle with onion.  Serve with tortilla chips…

Remember when I said try not to bale your hay if rain is pending?  Because then it is hard to salvage if it gets wet… .  Well, Miss Executive Decision Maker, spoke the words “Bale it!”  With a shrug, DH climbed on his trusty steed and baled away.  My thinking was, we hardly ever get the thunderstorms west of the Cascades, and the real storm front from the west wasn’t due until Wednesday.  We’ll have enough time to haul it, before it rains.  Well it’s all a damp, foggy memory now.

My view out the kitchen window.  I can barely make out the bales.  I’m trying not to look.

The bright side?  Yeah, OK, it isn’t someone else’s hay, so we aren’t getting calls asking us what to do about it.  That is something I don’t miss about making hay for other people.  Every summer somebody’s hay gets wet.  I just don’t like it when it is us.  Kind of like a car wreck, if you don’t know the people involved you just look, and drive by slowly and go about your business.  So no crying over spilled milk, we have a million other things to do… .

I can be delighted to find a Red-tailed Hawk feather, and I can play around with editing the photo and pretend if I lived here a long time ago and took a picture of a feather it might look like this…

Or maybe the Lacecap hydrangea I saved from my other Grandpa’s house might look like this… 

 But really, it looks like this, and if they could have taken color photos of this quality, they would have.  They would laugh about me trying to make it look old.

It’s hard to make out in this photo, but that is the Lacecap Hydrangea on the left.  The girl is a family friend, and I don’t know who the dog is, but wish I did, he reminds me of our Shan.  This picture was taken sometime in the 30’s, the house is gone now.  I’m glad I took a cutting.

So life goes on - DH is on vacation this week, so he hauled home 3 pickup loads of wood from the flooring mill, where we can get scraps of hardwood occasionally.  Otherwise, this would go to the landfill, and this saves a tree or two on our place.  This is exciting - see, we are easily amused.
 .

The warm season crops are starting to get ripe, so I need to double check my inventory of tomato products and pickles.

 I still have Oregon Blue garlic (softneck) from 2007.  I have dried some for garlic powder, and I planted less this year, so I have decided to use some of this for pesto.  It is a little drier and the flavor is stronger.  But, really it is fine, so I’m using it.  And, really I am trying to be more self-reliant.  Sometimes, I remind myself by asking, “What would your Grandmother have done with/about…”  My daughter will turn on the light in broad daylight and I scold her a little, and remind her our house was built long before electricity came to our area, and many, many books were read, and dishes were done without the benefit of a light bulb.  Of course, I get the rolling eye look, as I imagine my Grandmother got with many teenagers in the house.  But, by doing things like using this garlic, that is past it’s prime, I am showing her how to survive, in a world that may be different than what I knew as a teenager.

Our 102* heat last week caused some of the cilantro to bolt, but here again, it is still sweet and perfect for pesto.  We eat cilantro the most of the herbs we grow.  DH is supposed to eat it for chelation, and we like it on/in anything.   We make basil pesto too, but cilantro is our favorite.  The pesto we made the other day, was just the everyday, garlic, parmesan, nut recipe.  So far, we froze 24, 4 ounce jars.  It is expensive to make, and if I put it in larger jars, we just eat more.  This way I can meter it out a little.  The next cilantro pesto we make for the freezer will be made with jalapenos and vinegar.

Just for fun, I love the color of these egg yolks!  Looks like a brilliant red summer sunset to me.

HARD PORE CORN   (I forgot to mention Fred Flintstone is crossed with a little Archie Bunker) A little bovine T & A.
Now, Della is getting tired of me hovering, but she is starting to make bag, and her calf has dropped.  She will only let me take a picture if I give her a tail and bag rub.

I took this after the obligatory bag rub, to show her back fat.  That is where your milk comes from.  It is a challenge to keep a cow in good shape AND milking through the winter.  Hopefully, if all goes well, I can better coordinate with the AI guy this year, and get her back on schedule.  Since Henry will be gone by the time she comes in heat.

And, since it has been so rainy, I thought I should clean out my jean pockets.  How’s that for a collection of stuff?

Have you seen the movie, Babe?  When the sheep tell Rex, the gruff Border Collie their password, they say Baa-Ram-Ewe, and our daughter who was small at the time, thought the sheep were saying BAA-DAMN-YOU!  Now we aren’t really sure why she would think such a thing ;) - but it was quite comical at the time.  Almost as funny as the time she told us that a family friend’s boyfriend, reminded her of, “that Dick at the feed store!”  We still chuckle about that every time we go to the feed store :D  And we wondered, which one??

I actually love the movie Babe, in it’s simplicity it shows just how much a husbandman listens and watches his livestock.  A farm’s inhabitants are inter-related, not paying attention to subtle cues can make or break an operation.  Or not.  I’ve come to believe some people never will pay attention to their stock.  Some people don’t pay attention to their children either.  You either are aware or not.  Period.

Most of my talking to the animals is really listening to the animals, and Boy, do they have me trained.  Once the cows know that I know what they mean, they call to me.  Sometimes, it’s a greeting, or sometimes they need something, and they know I will show up.  I listen 24 hours a day.  Our cows are pretty quiet, usually only bawling if something is up.  They all have different voices and they can say many things, just like our dogs barking.  It isn’t just noise.  The males sound different than the females, and then the ages come into play.  Cows and bulls sound different than heifers and steers.  Each cow sounds different, too.  I have to listen and try to discern if there is a problem, or not. 
Things I listen for and what it may mean:
♣  Bull bawling or growling - he’s letting everyone know he’s available.  No worries here unless the noise is moving closer or farther away.

♣  Cow bawling - usually the calf is on the other side of the electric fence, is full of grass and isn’t too concerned with having milk for a snack.  Sometimes, the calf is just lying there, chewing it’s cud, and the cow is basically yelling at the calf, who is not listening.
Or, a cow is in heat, and there is no bull available, or there is one nearby and too many fences in between.  Passage of time usually cures these two.

♣  Several cows or yearlings bawling - someone jumped the fence and is getting better grass, they want to go too.  My cue to go put in the culprit, before they all knock down the fence.  This happens the most with rapidly growing yearlings or two year-olds - they get hungry and are impatient.  My fix, bigger paddock tomorrow!  And check my fence battery!

♣ All the cows bawling day or night - this means someone (two-legged) that has scared them is nearby.  Go check right away - most usually hunters!

♣  Cows bawling when they see me, if it’s not paddock moving time - probably something is wrong with the water supply.  Could be the electric fence moved and is blocking them from water, or a kink in the hose cut off the supply.  Unlike people, livestock won’t eat without an adequate amount of water.  If you see hay or feed that should have been cleaned up and it’s still there, check the water.  Especially poultry and hogs, they will absolutely go off feed if the water is out.  Sometimes this could alert you to a leak or in the case of cattle, there could be manure in the water trough.  Listening and looking make a difference.  Water, is the single most important thing overlooked, and I’ve done it too, working full time and trying to farm in the dark, or when you come home after a stressful day.  It’s hard to look for these small details. 

♣ Cows giving me the mmmmm moo, that means I’m one of them, and they want what ever is coming next.  Usually food or water.  Routine is every thing.  Della and her calves all talk to me this way, and I talk back in human words.  I could talk to Della all day, she never complains about the food, and if she doesn’t like something I’m doing, she swishes me hard with her tail.  No games - just cow and cowman.

Here’s Lath, since we are her herd, she tells us by mooing at us, if she’s out of water, needs her picket rope moved to fresh grass, or if I’m late with her bucket of milk!  Even though we have raised her, she knows what to say in Cowlish, we just have to listen.

All that being said, I don’t like to let them down, they trust me.

Here are some things I do to make sure that doesn’t happen:

♥  I listen.

♥  I don’t go around yelling.  If the cows hear my voice and it is raised, they will answer.  They can hear me from a mile away and will come if able to.  So I try to only call them when I want to move them.  They are used to my voice, other people can yell and they won’t listen.

♥  I don’t build their new fence unless I’m ready to move them to a new paddock.  If they see or hear me building fence, they think that they will get moved.  If I need to build fence a few days ahead, I do it right after the paddock shift.  They will be busy eating and will not be expecting to be moved again.  Cattle are creatures of habit, building a fence at noon, and then leaving would be very upsetting to the cows.

♥  I try not to have bad thoughts.  Animals and birds can read your mind.  They aren’t encumbered with all the trappings of human existence.  Especially if you are putting out bad vibes.  We had one mobile slaughter guy that had to park where the cows could not see his truck, and then he had to lay down in our pickup while we drove into the pasture, just to get close enough to get a shot.  Another guy we used, could drive right up to the pasture in his truck, get out with his rifle and walk right into the herd and drop a steer so fast, they didn’t even know what was up.  The good guy genuinely liked cattle, and was not apprehensive, to the other guy it was just a disgusting job.  I know you may think this makes the cattle seem dumb, but I’m telling this to illustrate how your demeanor AND thoughts spill over into livestock handling.  For instance, if it’s taking you longer than 15 or 20 minutes to milk out your cow, something is making her not let her milk down.  If a cow is relaxed and trusts you, and isn’t sick (mastitis, etc) you need to look at what your doing.  If Della is mad at me, she will only let down a small amount of milk at a time, and it is hard to milk like that.  That’s when I get out the big gun - her calf, then she lets her milk down and forgets she is mad at me.

Those are just a few of the things that I try to do.  All of the above apply to every species of livestock here.  Some like the turkeys, need more human interaction on the mothering part.  We have learned how to “talk turkey”, with different calls and noises, or sometimes just the tone of our voice.  Turkeys are very smart, (despite all the old tales of turkey stupidity) they just need more care initially in the first few weeks.  Raising turkey poults without the benefit of a mother hen, means I have to be the mother hen :). 

Strutting his stuff  - doesn’t he look tough!

We can talk to the turkeys, and get them to do this, of course they are only 5″ tall, so they don’t really look too imposing, but we tell them how BIG they are, and they like it.

There are other ways of being aware of our surroundings too.  The pigs bark at cars they don’t know.  If they bark, we listen to them, too.  Sometimes they bark when the dogs do, depending on what the dogs are barking at.  They all listen to each other, and know what the other is saying.

When I go to move the cows, I look at them to see if they are relaxed, mobbed up,  or looking into the woods or into the tall grass.  You never know what it might be.  If the birds are stirred up in the woods, we know it is something a bird is scared of, most likely a cat(of any size) or human.  The jays and woodpeckers hardly make a noise if a dog or coyote is near.  For us, it is as important to know the predator habits, as well as the prey reactions.  These are just a few tips, paying attention to all your surroundings and how your animals are acting, can tell you many things, and make you more in step with your land and all it inhabitants.
To your flock be true!

I’m dating myself again, I like Ted Nugent, too.

Ahhh, fruit what can I say?  Everybody likes fruit in one form or another.  We eat a lot of fruit.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner, it seems like we never have enough.  We buy extra fruit of different kinds that don’t grow well here, like apricots, nectarines and peaches.  Our fruit season starts with rhubarb, and ends with winter apples. 

I can fruit for quick snacks and lunches, and I freeze fruit for pies, crisps, cobblers and smoothies.  We also eat a lot of frozen fruit when it is half thawed out, in that state, it is like how I wished popsicles tasted as a kid.  Sometimes, the frozen fruit becomes jam later, when I have more time.  We try to grow as much as we can, but we never turn down a good deal on fruit. 

Berries grow well here, and the woods are full of blackberries, red and black huckleberries, black raspberries, thimble berries, and salmon berries.  Most we just eat as we find them, except the blackberries, which we try to pick enough for the freezer, since they are everywhere anyway.

The dreaded Himalayan Blackberry!

These babies are done.  This is Meeker, it puts on a large crop for processing.  We put up 36 quarts for the freezer.  This is probably our favorite berry.  We have a small row of ever bearing raspberries that I cut down in the spring and they produce a fall crop for fresh eating.

Elizabeth blueberries.  We have several varieties of blueberries that ripen over the season.  Ivanhoe and Elizabeth have the best flavor, but Jersey and Bluecrop are very productive, so if your space is limited, you have to decide what quality you want most in a berry.  So far, we have frozen 32 quarts.
Berries are the easiest to process, no washing, just pop in the freezer and you’re done.  If you are growing your own, or even picking at a u-pick farm, the berries shouldn’t need washing.

My girlfriend in grade school lived on a blueberry farm.  After picking, our job was to clean the blueberries and get them ready for the commercial accounts.  They had a V-shaped trough, that was slanted and covered with a sheet.  We would pour the berry bumpers out on the trough and the berries would roll down into crates.  The sheet would attract blossom ends and leaves, and the berries would be clean and ready for the store.
 

Pacific berries, these are an experimental cross from the 50’s, that never took off commercially.  Now the Marionberry is the sought after berry.  But, I got these from my gardening mentors, and I want to keep these going.  They are hard to grow, not liking any kind of human intervention or training.  These have climbed into the blueberry bushes, so I have left them.  The flavor is amazing, similar to the Pacific Trailing wild dewberry.   The only thing is finding a dog that will help you detect ripe ones.  Thanks Trace
 

Italian Prune.  IMHO the best prune for drying.  These are good canned too.  I would rather eat them than candy, and that is saying a lot.
 

Northern Spy.  Good eating, cooking, and keeping apple.

Remember those little sticks?  Here they are!  The apples and pears are doing good.  The cherries were a total failure.  Oh well, next year… .

Bartlett Pears.  Our wet spring weather sometimes prevents pollination of pears, apples and prunes.  When we have a good crop, I can, freeze or dry all that we have.  It may be several years before we get a good fruit set, and canned fruit will keep for several years.

Annanasnaja Hardy Kiwi.  These are hardy to -25 F.  Very productive with an unusual flavor.
Last year I made jam from them, following the Ball Blue Book recipe.  Before I processed the jam, I tasted it, and it was so-so.  I was going to feed it to the pigs.  I felt sorry for all the people I had given it to for Christmas.  Before giving it to the pigs, I tasted it the other day.
I MADE A MISTAKE!! It is great.  Sorry pigs
 

The Christmas cabinet.  The green snot-like jars are the kiwi jam.  (Maybe I should come up with a better description.)  I will make more, it tasted so good.

Tettnanger hops.  Not technically fruit, but they need picking so I included them.  Good for the obvious, and sleep pillows too.

This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but gives you an idea of the diversity of our fruit supply.  If you’re planning your fruit supply, or orchard, pick different varieties of each fruit that will allow you to pick fruit over an extended period.  You will want types that are good for preserving and types that are good for fresh eating.  And, if you plant a broad array of fruit, if you have a bad year for pollination, at least you will have something.

No I didn’t mean me, but Jetta.  Here is another one of those posts that will either cause readers to shake their heads in disgust or in agreement.

I would venture a guess, if you have owned any kind of livestock for more than 5 years, you might know where I’m coming from.  Less, than that - maybe not.

Jetta, I must say is resting in peace, or soon pieces.  I know, big bad farmer (me) made the decision.  That was the first step, the next step was all the second guessing and questioning the initial decision.

My daughter, who will forever after this day, be known an “Ruth Less,”  told me when I named that calf after the brat on Clifford the Big Red Dog, I would be in for trouble.  She was right, and she’s not letting me forget it. 

But, you know what - in retrospect everyone is breathing a sigh of relief.  We can walk the pasture now, without a stick.  Don’t get me wrong, she wouldn’t chase us down.  But, the body language she continually displayed was not what I would say in any way, shape or form, said “Please Milk Me.”   Unfortunately since Jetta had been handled since birth, she did not have any natural fear of humans, and since she was so familiar, she would come closer than the cows in our beef herd.  Most of them, will let me approach and pet and scratch them, if they get tired of that, or don’t want to be petted, they walk away, they do not threaten us with their head.  I suppose in a confinement operation, where the cows or the people don’t have to display actual manners, she would have been fine.  But, I can’t (won’t) have cattle that are a threat.  I barely know Henry, but I would rather try to milk him than go through one hour of cajoling Jetta.

So, now I can concentrate on her mom, Della, who is due on Labor Day.  After the blogging fiasco on Jetta’s pregnancy, I’m almost scared to post anything about Queen D, since I love her so much and it would tear a hole in my heart if something happens to her.  She is 10, and I know I won’t have my big Guernsey dog forever.  She has earned a place in our milk cow graveyard, unfortunately Jetta did not.

This post contains many pictures - dial-up beware! 

Here’s what the gardens look like now in mid-August.  The heat has been 102* for the last three days - I guess maybe it’s time for that mean, ol’ dry land gardener to drag out the sprinklers and soaker hoses!

We’re just been busy keeping everybody (except us) in the shade and bringing extra water.  Henry has a drinking problem - he drinks a lot of water!  But DH tells me it is an awesome responsibility, you know…, I’ll just take his word for it.

DH is on vacation - so here is an idea for a staycation - work!  He’s been in the hayfield everyday, and today we were having a “discussion” about raking and he did it the way I wanted, even though we both dropped it.  We always do that, he says one thing and I say another and we both do what the other one said, always cancelling each other out.  Mars/Venus, Pisces/Leo, Two Roosters, I give up - it will never be any different between us. 

But I digress…, back to the garden.  I’ll do veggies today and fruit the next post, too many pictures to put in one post.  And, I’ll get to my comments.

“New Garden”

Della is liking the looks of this.  L - R, Stuttgarter Onions, Red-Cored Chantenay Carrots, and Harris Model Parsnip.   These rows of carrots and parsnips are for her winter feed.  Planted May 19th, they will last until next May.  I have never been able to get a decent crop if these root crops are planted any later than the Solstice.   Note the deer netting on the carrots.  These have been nibbled down once, so are a little set back.  The carrots and parsnips will stay in the ground and be harvested as needed.  I usually harvest once a week.  See some of my earliest posts, for pics of what we harvested each week last winter.   If your area is too cold for in-ground storage, try root cellaring, instead of canning or freezing.  The fresher your food is, the more healthful it will be.

L-R, Sweet Meat winter squash and another double row of Harris Model parsnips.

Sweet Meat winter squash, a Portland native.  I’ve been saving seed from this variety for quite awhile. Now it is fully acclimated to our location and actually produces sooner than stated in the seed catalogs.  It is a maxima, so I don’t plant any other maxima squash, so I can avoid any cross pollination.
I love this squash, it keeps in dry storage until May and sometimes June, no canning, freezing, just storage.  It actually gets sweeter in storage.  It also produces great “pumpkin” seeds.  I never plant all my seeds, just in case I can’t get the next crop to maturity.  That way I don’t have to start over with a variety.  This has been a very cold year, these may not make it to the storage stage, in that case, I still have seed left over. 

Hybrid Sweet Corn - Welcome TSW.   Too soon to tell if we’ll get corn or not.  If not, the cows will eat the fodder.
 

Viking Purple Potatoes, and the other side of the corn.

We have already harvested garlic, potato onions, shell peas, and strawberries from this garden.

Chestnut, and Friendly, part of our Katahdin headland improvement team.
Main Garden

L - R, Purple Podded Pole Beans, Red Core Chantenay Carrots, Lutz Beets, Joan rutabagas, and misc. brassicas.  I have been saving seed from these pole beans for a long time also.  Some of these beets will also be grown out next season for seed.  They cross freely with Swiss Chard, so I alternate seed saving years, on beets and chard.  These carrots, beets and rutabagas will also stay in the ground.  The dogs have been successful keeping the deer out of this garden (knock on wood) so far, as soon as we see more than one or two nibbles or tracks, we will put the deer netting on these rows also.
 

My dry beans, a local variety called Uncle John, grown right here in my hometown for over 100 years.  Besides the squash, I’m worried about these coming to maturity.  If not they will be fresh shell beans, not dry.  Again, I didn’t plant all my seed because the spring was so wet and cool.  I waited until the time was right.  They yield about a 1# of shelled dry beans for every 10′ of row.  These rows are 100′.

Cocozelle OP summer squash.  Delicious!
 

L - R, WEEDS!!! misc. brassicas, zukes, cukes, misc cabbages, herbs and more weeds and grass that needs mowing.

National Pickling OP.  We eat quite a bit of bread and butter pickles, and use the leftover brine for potato salad.
 

L - R, weeds, broccoli, cauliflower, cukes, celeriac, celery, cabbage.

Greenhouse 1

L - R, Numex Joe E. Parker OP, Bellstar OP paste tomatoes,  Costoluto Genovese OP tomatoes.

Bellstar OP paste tomatoes

SunSugar F1 cherry tomatoes.

Costoluto Genovese OP tomatoes.  Most of these end up roasted and made into sauce.  These are more of an all-around Italian heirloom.  The flavor is wonderful.
 

 
Costoluto Fiorentino OP tomato, another Italian heirloom.  New for us this year, I’m trying to see which one of these Costolutos I will save seed from.  I’m looking for taste, productivity, and early ripening.

This week, I will trim off these tops, and not let anymore blossoms form.  These are 85 day tomatoes, that means from the blossom time, not the time the plant is put in the ground.  After this heat wave, I will not water these tomatoes anymore.  I want them to concentrate on ripening the fruit that is already set, not grow new ones.  I want these plants out of the greenhouse before the first frost.  Since I started keeping track of the dates on my canned sauce, I realized the last tomatoes always make an insipid flavored sauce.

Sweet Pimiento OP - our favorite!

Sunray F1 - our next favorite. 

Numex Joe E. Parker, Anaheim chile.  I need to quit saying favorite, because when I think how good these are - I love these too!

Paprika Supreme F1, I don’t love these, but they make killer paprika.

Greenhouse 2 (the problem child)

In there somewhere is all my winter (deer proof) brassicas.  6 different kales, and  5 different cabbages.  The thick weeds are all lambsquarter.  This greenhouse was were we housed our replacement pullets, until they were old enough to go out on pasture.  I faithfully brought them weeds to eat - thoroughly seeding this green house with common weeds.  Still left to plant in here are spinach, lettuce, and misc. hardy salad greens.

It looks a little better after weeding.  These were seeded in June, transplanted in July, and we will be eating off this planting until May.  Next year, tomatoes and peppers will go in here.  Are we foodies or what??  Next post - fruit, I promise it won’t be so long.

I grew up eating out of our garden and orchard.  Store bought didn’t happen very often. So, I don’t have any qualms about eating less than perfect looking food.   With food prices on the rise and more people gardening, people will have to get used to blemished food.  (Pesticides aren’t good for you, and sometimes it is easier to just put up barriers to the pest or grow resistant varieties.)   Organic wasn’t even heard of, you just gardened and lived with the pests.  Since my folks and all my gardening mentors used composted animal manure, I think they were dodging the pest bullet so common in many vegetable gardens.  I don’t even remember crop rotating being done, but the pests and diseases stayed away, for the most part, and if there were bug holes or, heaven forbid, BUGS, the bad spots were cut away and the good part was utilized.

They also cooked with what was on hand, some wonderful meals can be made in a snap if you have a well-stocked pantry and are able to think outside of the box.  Sometimes other factors come into play when meal planning around here.  In the last week the deer have been getting more and more cagey, and expanding their palate.  First, the carrots, and then the strawberry plants, and now they have decided to start in on one of our little interplantings of cabbage.  They are getting quite good at multi-tasking too.  Last, night while dining on cabbage, they thinned some carrots and danced tromped on the Walla Walla Sweet Onions.  So I guess I will make my favorite refrigerator slaw, and price 9′ woven wire while I’m at it. 

I got this recipe from an old cabbage farmer, but it used too much sugar, so I have changed it to match what is usually around needing used up.

Bug and venison deer nibbled cabbage, venison deer thinned carrots, and a pepper that has sunscald because someone pulled some tall weeds.

REFRIGERATOR SLAW

1 Medium head of cabbage, shredded or chopped fine.
2 - 3 carrots, grated.
1 medium sweet onion, grated.
1 green pepper, grated.
1 Tablespoon salt.
Black pepper to taste.

1/3 cup cider vinegar or strong Kombucha.
1/3 cup olive oil.
1/3 cup sugar or honey.

Mix first 5 ingredients, and let sit while you:  heat vinegar, oil and sugar to just boiling.  Pour over slaw.  Mix well and refrigerate at least 2 hours before eating.  The original recipe says it will keep six weeks in the fridge, but it never lasts that long - I eat this stuff for a mid-morning snack.   There is usually dressing left over and I save that and use it on the next batch.

Not tonight Deer!

This was going to be a separate post but the current weather conditions brought this to mind.  It’s 100* right now, with 18% percent humidity.  That’s tinder box dry!  And they’re predicting 100+ for the next two days.

Being a farmer means being a jack of all trades.  Plumber, electrician, vet, midwife or husband, and very important - mechanic.

Also rural areas usually have volunteer fire departments.  While our fire department is great, they usually spend their time rescuing “lost” hikers and climbers, or cats in trees, and dogs that fall off of cliffs!  And, they can’t be everywhere at once.  So we have to have our own fire protection.   The last forest fire that put us in danger, was in 1991 and we were on standby to do cat work in the nearby forest land.  So we feel this is one piece of equipment we need.

 We picked up this cat when an equipment dealer was going out of business.  It was a trade-in and we got it for 40% off of what the dealer paid for it, so really it was like 75% off of retail.  We couldn’t pass it up.  It has paid for itself in side jobs.  It’s expensive to hire this kind of work done, and you can never get the guy when the soil conditions are OK for cat work.  And, more important it’s hard to find equipment operators that will be as careful as you are with your land.   Repairs can be expensive too, unless, you have a mechanic around.  I keep mine on the couch.

 The drum or winch had a bad seal and wouldn’t shut off, so with a $25.00 part and a couple of hours work, the drum was fixed.  This would have been a $600.00 repair job to take it in, and a 3 week wait.

We limit our cat work to the dry season, and try to combine trips and jobs in the woods.
This trip was to skid out firewood logs, and push out some invasive blackberries.

Setting the chokers on the firewood logs.

Pulling the logs out to our skid road.  We use this road during the dry season to access the woods, and pastures.  With the logs beside the road we can lessen our impact, and not work so hard making up firewood.

 

We have a love/HATE relationship with the blackberries around here!  As a child there where no Himalayan Blackberries, just non-native Evergreen Blackberries and the Pacific Trailing Blackberries.

The Himalayan Blackberry is so invasive, it will grow at least 20 feet per year.  They taste good, but, I can only use so many.  We know people who have quit using their equipment and the berries have grown over an entire set of hay equipment, vehicles and now is encroaching on the barn.  You can’t even see what is underneath, the berry vines are so thick.

We have been wanting to thin this Red Alder patch, but we haven’t been able to get to it because of the  blackberries.  By doing it at this time, we won’t displace any fledgling birds, just maybe a few rabbits.   This land was logged in 1990, when my Mom had to purchase land from her sister-in-law, just to keep it.  It was zoned at the time, farm OR forest, so we didn’t have to replant Douglas Fir, which is usually required.  It is on a north facing slope and we wanted to let it naturally go through its own forest cycle on its own time table.  We were glad to see in two years, a very thick stand of nitrogen-fixing Red Alder come in.  Now we can thin it a little, for cookstove wood and let the other trees get larger.

As you can see the blackberries vines really add up.